From Lucy . . .
It is mid-summer at home. It hasn’t rained for weeks. But tonight, it’s one of those long, sultry evenings, where it feels as if the sun just can’t bear to say good night. I lean fully out of the bedroom window and I can smell rain in the air. I want to burn the image in front of me into my memory, just in case I get stuck on a desert island one day. A recent visitor commented that the garden was looking a little bit wild, untamed and suggested it might be a good time to do a little bit of pruning, hacking back… ‘get on top of it’, they added casually, as if this will swing it.
‘Not yet’, I whisper, ‘not just yet’, while ruminating that they were possibly missing the point,
Maybe later when the Cotinus Coggygria turns flame red I’ll prune her and bring a few branches inside. Maybe when the rains come and flatten the blue Campanula we can tidy her up a bit, and I think I might cut some of those Dahlia’s in the distance and hang them upside down to dry in the studio. But just for a moment let me drink in this image that stirs memories of days from the past, of carefree, old-world glamour, where the boundaries between cultivation and countryside blur, where the flowers tumble, free to do as they please, content in their own world of possibilities.
I left the bank eventually to carve out a tiny career for myself in garden design, that would, eventually, after 20 years span the globe and lead to a world full of flowers, trees and nature that would always keep me curious and my spirit alive.
I became a story teller. Always searching for that imagined garden both for myself and my clients and in lockdown with time stretching out in front of me with no deadlines or emails to answer I picked up my paintbrushes again. Those gardens and landscapes of my imagination becoming murals and wallpapers.
Inspiration comes from all kinds of places for my work.
I think half the time it is being open to it all that matters. Inspiration can be found everywhere if we take the time to stop, look and find wonder in the familiar. Life can lead you to places that you never dreamed possible.
I think if you want something enough and remain curious and open to new possibilities, then that imagined garden of your dreams will eventually appear. It is then up to you to grasp it with both hands.
I didn’t grow up in the countryside. I grew up in a semi-detached house in the busy suburbs of South London where the lawns were kept short and shrubs hacked back to be respectable. The cool kids (we are talking the 80’s here) were on roller skates but I loved being up in the trees, spending time on a wooden box palette wedged in the Cherry tree in the family garden that Dad had fixed as a treehouse. I could peer over fences and look at the horizon, I was surrounded by leaves. My Grandmother had a garden that was wild. The roses were allowed to tumble and weave their way through the trees, hanging off low branches in wild festoons of scented heaven. It was wildly romantic. Here there was no need to please anyone or be someone I didn’t want to be. This became my imagined garden for a long time.
The early 1990’s took me to university where I painted for 3 years, leaving with a Fine’s Arts degree, painted splattered dungarees and a hangover that would last for the next 20 years.
Upon graduation though I turned my back on my paintbrushes, following societies expectations that I would carve out a suitable career for myself in a suitable institution. Eight years later, on the top floor of an office block in a well-known UK bank, my imagined garden was but a distant hazy memory. I was productive yes. A success yes. Society would sagely nod their head with unspoken respect at my job title. But at what cost?
I so hope our website and wallpapers will inspire you to fill your own homes and gardens with stories of romance, nostalgia for times gone past of a world that was often gentler, filled with the sound of birdsong, seasonal flowers and your own world of unlimited possibilities.
With love,
Lucy
Founder